Monday, December 23, 2013

Homeowners 'won't be directly notified of fracking under their homes'

Planning minister Nick Boles scraps “unnecessarily excessive” planning rules
to cut red tape for shale gas companies
Fracking could take place under peoples’ homes without their being directly
informed, campaigners claimed on Wednesday, after ministers scrapped
planning rules requiring every homeowner to be individually notified of
drilling plans.
Fracking, the process used to extract shale gas, can involve drilling a well
horizontally for more than two miles underground, potentially passing under
hundreds of homes.
Existing planning laws required every individual homeowner to be directly
notified of a planning application.
But planning minister Nick Boles said that that required notification of a
“disproportionately large number of individuals and businesses” that would
be “unnecessarily excessive”.
Instead, shale gas companies would be “required to publish a notice in a local
newspaper and put up site displays in local parishes”.
"Shale gas has the potential to provide our country with greater energy
security, growth and jobs," Mr Boles said.
Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Tony Bosworth said: “People should be
notified personally if firms want to drill or frack for oil and gas under
their homes removing that right is a further blow to local communities who
are rightly concerned about the impacts of fracking.
“Earlier this week the Government accepted that fracking could have
potentially significant local impacts. Ministers should be strengthening
rules to protect local people, not weakening them in yet another sop to an
industry that wants to keep us hooked on dirty fossil fuels.”
But industry body, the UK Onshore Operators Group, said that home-owners would
still be directly informed that drilling was going to take place under their
homes as part of the process to negotiate access with landowners.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of UKOOG, said: "The law is quite clear that
operators have to negotiate with landowners with respect to underground
drilling. Operators will comply with the law with respect to all
notification procedures.

2 Long term Jewish opponents of British nationalism having a bad time of it.......................

Denis MacShane Jailed Over Expenses Claims

Denis MacShane gets six months in jail and sarcastically mutters "quelle surprise" as he is led from the dock.

Video: MacShane Has Been 'Punished Enough'

Former Labour minister Denis MacShane has been jailed for six months after admitting making £13,000 of bogus expense claims.

The ex-MP previously pleaded guilty to false accounting by filing 19
fake receipts for "research and translation" services from 2005 to 2008.
MacShane, 65, used the money to fund a series of trips to Europe, including one to judge a literary competition in Paris.
His guilty plea followed more than four years of scrutiny into his use of Commons allowances.
Mr Justice Sweeney, sitting at the Old Bailey, stressed that this
expenses case was different to others because it was not for "personal
profit".
But he added: "The dishonesty involved was considerable and was repeated many times over a period.
"In your case you have no one to blame but yourself."
Flanked by two security officers, MacShane, wearing a dark suit with a
blue striped tie and glasses, said "Cheers" as the sentence was
delivered, before adding, "Quelle surprise" as he was led from the dock.

MacShane resigned as MP for Rotherham
Sky's Darren McCaffrey, at the court, said MacShane argued with the
dock officer before sentencing after being told he could not take his
luggage and mobile phone in with him.
MacShane was told he must serve half his sentence in prison and was ordered to pay costs of £1,500 within two months.
Parliamentary authorities began looking at his claims in 2009 when the
wider scandal engulfed Westminster, and referred him to Scotland Yard
within months.
But the principle of parliamentary privilege meant detectives were not
given access to damning correspondence with the standards commissioner
in which MacShane detailed how signatures on receipts from the European
Policy Institute (EPI) had been faked.
The body was controlled by MacShane and the general manager's signature
was not genuine. One message, dated October 2009, said he drew funds
from the EPI so he could serve on a book judging panel in Paris.
It was not until after police dropped the case last year that the
cross-party Standards Committee published the evidence in a report that
recommended an unprecedented 12-month suspension from the House.
MacShane, 65, who served as Europe minister under Tony Blair, resigned
as MP for Rotherham last November before the punishment could be
imposed.
Police then re-opened their inquiry in the light of the fresh
information and he was charged in May - even though the letters are
still not thought to be admissible in court.
MacShane is reportedly in a relationship with Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne.http://news.sky.com/story/1186376/denis-macshane-jailed-over-expenses-claims

Macshanes real name is ; Denis Matyjaszek

And even more good news....................................

Police raid home of Labour Lord as part of historic sex abuse probe and spend two days searching his £600,000 apartment

Officers raided the home of Lord Greville Janner of Braunstone, Leicester

Leicestershire Police spent two days searching his flat in Barnet

Spokesman said no arrests have been made in connection with the raid

Neighbour describes seeing police 'coming and going' for days

Lawyers for the peer say he is helping police with their inquiries

Police officers spent two days raiding the
London home of Lord Greville Janner as part of an on-going probe into
historic sex abuse claims

Police officers have raided the
London home of Labour Lord Greville Janner, as part of an 'on-going
criminal investigation' in to historic sex abuse allegations, it has
emerged.Officers from Leicestershire Police spent two days searching the peer's £600,000 apartment in Barnet, north London.The force refused to give details of what was seized at the 85-year-old's home but confirmed it is part of an on-going probe.It is understood the investigation is into allegations of historic sex abuse.A
police spokesman said: 'Leicestershire Police can confirm its officers
executed a search warrant of a property in Barnet, London as part of an
ongoing criminal inquiry.'No arrests have been made at this stage.'The former barrister was named Baron Janner of Braunstone, Leicester in 1997.The peer's lawyers WilmerHale said in a statement, that Lord Janner is helping police officers with their inquiries.The
statement said: 'Lord Janner has not been arrested but has been
assisting the police with their inquiries. We are not able to make any
further comment at this time.'Builders
working on a renovation next door to Janner’s home saw a number of
police cars and officers at the address on Monday and Tuesday.

One said: 'There were police cars here on Monday and Tuesday. They were coming and going all day.'I don’t know what happened, but they’ve been back since.'They were here on Tuesday and came back on Wednesday.'The huge white-fronted property in West Hampstead contains six luxury flats.Janner was at home on Thursday afternoon but did not answer the door.A young man, who identified himself as ‘Jameson’, claimed he was the Lord’s personal spiritual healer.He said: 'The Lord won’t come to the door. He is exhausted with all the stress of dealing with the police.'He’s old and needs his rest. I don’t want to say any more.'

Leicestershire Police refused to comment on what
was seized at Lord Janner's Barnet flat. Officers were seen combing the
property on Monday and Tuesday

In 2006 Lord Janner was
struck by fellow Lord Bramall, a former head of the Armed Forces,
during a furious row over the Lebanon conflict.Janner,
a prominent speaker on Jewish rights who was President of the Board of
British Jews, has been hailed for his efforts to see Holocaust victims
receive compensation.In
1955, he married Myra Sheink, born and bred in Australia, who passed
away in 1996. He has three children and many grandchildren.On
his official website, Janner says his hobbies include 'autograph
collections, glass and other antiquities, swimming, speaking his nine
languages and his family.'It also says he is a member of the Magic Circle and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

And according to reports another top jew ex Cabinet Minister is going to 'get his collar felt' in the near future for child sex offences.Seems it's the ex Thatcher Home Secretary who isn't really 'Brittish' ! (Pun intended).

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Infamous IRA sniper Bernard McGinn found dead

Bernard McGinn, an
IRA sniper convicted of killing the last British soldier to die before
the Good Friday peace agreement, who has been found dead:

Infamous IRA sniper Bernard McGinn (56) was found dead in a house in Killyconnigan, Monaghan Town, today.

It is thought McGinn died of natural causes. A post Mortem is expected to be held tomorrow.
McGinn
was convicted of killing Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick in
Bessbrook on February 12, 1997, one of the last British Soldiers to be
killed by the IRA during The Troubles. Restorick was talking and smiling
to a Catholic woman when he was gunned down.
McGinn was a member
of one of two IRA sniper teams which used the deadly Barrett 50 M90
calibre sniper rifle to kill a total of nine members of the British
forces, including Stephen Restorick between 1992 and 1997.
A
native of Castleblayney in County Monaghan, Bernard McGinn was caught by
British Army SAS operatives at a farm near Crossmaglen on 10 April
1997. McGinn confessed to his role in the IRA bombing campaign involving
attacks in Northern Ireland and England and he also implicated more
than twenty members of the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade.
McGinn was
sentenced to a total of 490 years in 1999 for 34 separate offences for
his IRA activities including the murder of three British soldiers, his
involvement in the 1992 bombing of the Baltic Exchange and the 1996
South Quay bombing, and the bombing of Hammersmith Bridge later the same
year. However, he was released in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement.
McGinn’s
first joined the IRA at the age of 15. His father was a former Sinn
Fein councillor and he was the brother-in- law of Cavan/Monaghan Sinn
Féin TD and Health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin. http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/infamous-ira-sniper-bernard-mcginn-found-dead-29858795.html

Thursday, December 19, 2013

‘The nasty side of the Tories was laid bare today as their MPs
laughed and sneered when told how hungry families were turning to food
banks.

Callous Conservative politicians smirked and shouted when Labour MPs
explained in a Commons debate how some shoppers were so desperate they
fought for discount food in supermarkets.
Astonishingly, all the Government ministers from the responsible
departments – including Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith –
left the Commons after just an hour of the debate.
By then Mr Duncan Smith had already ducked questions in the Commons
by choosing not to speak, putting forward his deputy instead.

In one of the most shameful episodes witnessed in Parliament, Tory
backbenchers could be heard laughing dismissively when Labour MP Fiona
MacTaggart told how shoppers at her Tesco in Slough, Berkshire, were now
fighting each other for cheap food.’Read more …

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Latest BNP e-mail - Please pass the sick bucket !!!

Award yourself the title of British Hero by leaving your estate,
or a portion of it, to the British National Party in your will. For more
advice on making a will
visit here, call me, Clive Jefferson, on 0845
809 4581 for personal advice, or contact me by email at legacy@bnp.org.uk

======================================================================NWN: This is what the BNP is now reduced to under crook Griffin. Conning old people out of their wills/properties. We wonder just how many wills have gone AWOL under Nick Griffins despotic rule ?

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Public demands Royal Marine who murdered Taliban fighter should have his sentence halved

39 per cent disagree with ten-year minimum life sentence for Sgt Blackman

Six out of ten say he should serve a maximum of five years behind bars

One in three say he should not be locked up at all

Jailed: Sergeant Alexander Blackman was jailed for at least ten years for murdering a badly wounded Taliban insurgent

The Royal Marine jailed for
at least ten years for murdering a badly wounded Taliban insurgent
should have his sentence halved to a maximum of five years.That
is the overwhelming view of the public in a poll conducted for The Mail
on Sunday – the first survey since the sentence was imposed on Sergeant
Alexander Blackman.A total of 39 per cent disagree with the ten-year minimum life sentence for Sgt Blackman, with 37 per cent in favour. However, almost six out of ten say he should serve a maximum of five years behind bars. And one in three say he should not be locked up at all.The
results of the Survation poll come amid continuing controversy over the
jailing of the Marine, who was dismissed in disgrace for a ‘cold
blooded killing’ that had ‘tarnished’ the good name of the British
Forces.The sentence
has also divided politicians. Senior Tory and former Defence Minister
Sir Gerald Howarth criticised the sentence and said he believes five
years is sufficient punishment for Sgt Blackman.Sir
Gerald, MP for Army garrison town Aldershot, told The Mail on Sunday:
‘The Afghanistan war is as brutal as any we have seen – and only one
side is fighting in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The Taliban
routinely string the limbs of our dead soldiers up on trees.

‘The
highest standard of discipline must be maintained in the Armed Forces
and this man obviously committed an offence. But ten years is too much.
Five years would be more appropriate. The court should have paid greater
attention to this soldier’s fine record in the Army and that he had
done several tours of duty in Afghanistan.’

Sgt Alexander Wayne Blackman: A total of 39 per
cent disagree with the ten-year minimum life sentence for Sgt Blackman,
with 37 per cent in favour

Senior Tory and former Defence Minister Sir
Gerald Howarth criticised the sentence and said he believes five years
is sufficient punishment for Sgt Blackman

Sir Gerald was backed by
Left-wing MP and former soldier Eric Joyce, who argued: ‘It is
ridiculous to treat Sgt Blackman like someone who has carried out a
premeditated murder in civvy street. ‘I
doubt whether the judge has the first idea of what it is like to be on
the battlefield when bullets are flying around. If the legal system
cannot make allowances for that, then it should be changed. Clearly,
this man should go to jail, but five years is enough.’But
former Lib Dem leader and ex-Royal Marine Lord Paddy Ashdown, who was
an MP for Somerset, where Sgt Blackman lives, strongly disagreed. He
said: ‘I am content with the judge’s decision. We go into these
countries to defend the law so we cannot break it. If we do so, the law
must take its natural course and it has.’Asked
whether they agree with the ten-year minimum jail sentence, the
Survation poll suggests narrow opposition to the ruling among the
public. However, the
strength of feeling that he has been treated too harshly emerges clearly
in response to a more detailed question. When asked what punishment Sgt
Blackman deserves, 35 per cent of voters say no jail sentence, 23 per
cent say he should serve five years, 20 per cent back ten years, and 22
per cent say he should serve more than ten years.A family friend said Sgt Blackman’s wife Claire was ‘incredibly grateful’ for the public’s support.Survation interviewed 900 people online yesterday.

NWN: We are not happy with this lad being 'hung out to dry'. He shouldn't have done what he did, but his punishment is far too harsh. This current writer has 'seen action', and almost did do something he ought not to, that involved 'opening up' with his weapon in Northern Ireland.

So I do empathise.

A jail sentence is far too much in our opinion.

In the 1970's period, when something particularly bad occured against us, they pulled the whole Squadron/Regiment out of the line. Maybe the Army + Royal Marines are too small now to do that ?

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

The Government may be covering up the extent to which austerity and welfare cuts are adding to the problem

Hunger in Britain has reached the level of a “public health
emergency” and the Government may be covering up the extent to which
austerity and welfare cuts are adding to the problem, leading experts
have said.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of
doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two
leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on
vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently”
monitored.
A surge in the number of people requiring emergency
food aid, a decrease in the amount of calories consumed by British
families, and a doubling of the number of malnutrition cases seen at
English hospitals represent “all the signs of a public health emergency
that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative
action,” they write.
Despite mounting evidence for a growing food
poverty crisis in the UK, ministers maintain there is “no robust
evidence” of a link between sweeping welfare reforms and a rise in the
use of food banks. However, publication of research into the phenomenon,
commissioned by the Government itself, has been delayed, amid
speculation that the findings may prove embarrassing for ministers.
“Because
the Government has delayed the publication of research it commissioned
into the rise of emergency food aid in the UK, we can only speculate
that the cause is related to the rising cost of living and increasingly
austere welfare reforms,” the public health experts write.
The
authors of the letter, who include Dr David Taylor-Robinson and
Professor Margaret Whitehead of Liverpool University’s Department of
Public Health, say that malnutrition can have a long-lasting impact on
health, particularly among children.
Chris Mould, chief executive
of the Trussell Trust, the largest national food bank provider said
that one in three of the 350,000 people who required a food bank
hand-out this year were children.
He called the BMJ letter a
“timely warning” and criticised the Department of Work and Pensions
(DWP) for keeping its report into the problem “under wraps”.
The
report was commissioned by the Department for Environment Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) in February, and was completed by an academic at
Warwick University. However, publication has been stalled.
“We’ve
sought to engage with the DWP in order to share our data and share our
experience, with a view to exploring what practical action could be
taken to ease the problem,” Mr Mould told The Independent. “We’ve had refusals, letters saying they do not want to talk to us. We find that deeply disappointing.”
“We
want to see that research. It was commissioned by Government, pulled
together by a highly reputable academic and we want to see what it says.
We understand that the reason it has not been published is that DWP has
queried aspects of the data in it and has been preventing its
publication for months. That, we think, is not acceptable.”
In
their letter, Dr Taylor-Robinson, Professor Whitehead and colleagues
cite figures recently released by the Government which revealed a surge
in the number of malnutrition cases diagnosed at English hospitals since
the recession – up from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499 in 2012/13. They also
draw attention to reports from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which
found a decrease in the number of calories purchased by families, as
well as “substitution with unhealthier foods, especially in families
with young children”.
“Malnutrition in children is particularly
worrying because exposures during sensitive periods can have lifelong
effects, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and other adult
chronic diseases,” they write. “Access to an adequate food supply is the
most basic of human needs and rights.”
A government spokesperson
said that the Coalition had “help[ed] families with the cost of living
[by] increasing the tax-free personal allowance to £10,000, freezing
council tax and freezing fuel duty.”
A Defra spokesperson said
that the food aid report would be published after a “necessary review
and quality assurance process” was complete.
But Luciana Berger,
Labour’s shadow minister for public health, said that it was a “national
scandal” that people were suffering from malnutrition in the UK.
“This
shouldn’t be happening in 21st century Britain,” she said. “With
hundreds of thousands having to access emergency food aid, it’s sadly
unsurprising that people are both eating less and eating less healthily.
David Cameron needs to listen to what the experts are saying and tackle
the cost of living crisis driving people into food poverty.”50,000 people sign petition launched by former food bank user
More
than 50,000 people in have signed a petition calling for Parliament to
hold a debate on the causes of food poverty in the UK.
The petition was launched on Monday by the writer and former food bank user Jack Monroe.
In her appeal on the Change.org website, Ms Monroe called on supporters to “make politicians confront what is happening.”
“I
don’t think this is acceptable in the seventh richest country in the
world – and I’d really like to know the reasons why it’s happening so we
can stop it…” she said. “We need to stop turning a blind eye.”
The petition has been backed by the Unite union and the national food bank charity the Trussell Trust.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/food-poverty-in-uk-has-reached-level-of-public-health-emergency-warn-experts-8981051.html

NWN: And so it goes on......the UK is being made into a 3rd World country in more ways than one. What next, a return of the workhouses ?

Unless and until nationalists get a grip of issues like this we will go nowhere. With pure numbskulls like Messrs Griffin and Bryan that won't happen. (Waiting for the threats from the Griffinites and Bryan).Golden Dawn have grasped this issue.

Germany's Bundesrat moves to ban far-right NPD

Legislative
body representing the 16 states to submit application to constitutional
court 10 years on from last attempt to ban party

National Democratic
party (NPD) supporters protest in Berlin in August against Germany's
immigration and asylum policies.

Officials in Germany
are to launch a fresh legal attempt to ban the far-right NPD, arguing
that the party's ideology is identical to that of the Nazis.

The
Bundesrat – the upper body of the German parliament, which represents
the country's 16 federal states – is due to submit its renewed
application for an NPD ban to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe on
Tuesday.
A previous attempt to ban the far-right party failed 10
years ago. In 2003, an application was rejected after it emerged that 30
out of 200 members of the NPD leadership had been informants paid for
by the state: some judges felt that this invalidated the evidence
presented by the applicants.
But state officials are confident
that they have a stronger case for a ban this time. Their application
will draw solely on publicly available material and two reports by
academics, none of it provided by so-called V-Personen, or informants.

According
to a report in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the
application will focus less on the NPD's xenophobic and antisemitic
rhetoric and more on its anti-constitutional tendencies. The party's
stated aim is to create "a community of physically and spiritually
homogeneous people".
One of the reasons behind the renewed
application is the National Socialist Underground scandal. The terrorist
group is implicated in the murder of nine migrants and a police
officer. Investigations into the NSU's network revealed close links to
NPD functionaries in Jena, a city near Leipzig.

Neither the
current nor the likely next coalition government is planning to get
formally involved in the application. Chancellor Angela Merkel's
spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the NPD was an anti-democratic,
xenophobic and an antisemitic party that should be fought with all
means, but that the government did not consider a renewed ban
application necessary.
If the application were to succeed, the NPD
would become the third party to be ruled unconstitutional in postwar
Germany. The neo-Nazi Socialist Reichsparty was banned in 1952 and the
German Communist party in 1956.

An NPD ban may not appear as
urgent as it used to: after almost making it into the Bundestag in 1969,
the party gained only 1.3% of the vote in the general elections in
September. Yet in Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the NPD has been an
unwelcome state parliament presence since the middle of the last
decade.

In 2005, the NPD created a scandal when its members left
the chamber of the Saxony parliament during a minute's silence for the
victims of National Socialism. The NPD leader, Holger Apfel, has also
described the allied attack on Dresden during the second world war as a
"bomb holocaust".

Friday, November 29, 2013

Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera was born on April 14, 1903, in a turmoil filled period of Spanish history.
The last strongholds of the Spanish empire such as Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Philippines were lost to the United States. Primo De Rivera was
born on April 24th, 1903, as the son of General Miguel Primo De Rivera,
the Prime Minister of Spain under King Alfonso XIII until 1930. With
the fall of his father, a period of chaos and repeat elections took
place until the 19th of November, 1933, where the conservative Spanish
right won 205 seats, and therefore became the most powerful force over
the political situation in the country.

“You cannot, even if you wanted to, follow the advice of
our country’s most outstanding men- you cannot be deaf and blind to
Spain’s overpowering agony.” In October of 1933, Jose
Antonio’s grouping combined with the National-Syndicalists of Ramiro
Ledesma to form a new radical political movement called “Spanish
Phalanx”. Jose Antonio was a powerful speaker, who sought to bring
Spanish nationalists away from the traditional “right” parties, and
struggle for a united and great Spain against Communism and Capitalism.
Jose Antonio spoke out in particular against the Marxist and Democrat
alliance called the “Popular Front”, which was organized by Moscow for
the expressed purpose of spreading Bolshevism to Spain.

By February 1936, The Communist-led Popular Front was elected by a
razor thin margin. The electoral victory emboldened Communists and
Anarchists and a wave of Left-wing violence that included political
assassinations, arson attacks on churches, looting, and general
terrorism caused panic throughout Spain. At the same time, the numbers
of the Falange party grew exponentially as people searched for a way to
fight back. By the 14th of March, 1936, the Falange was officially
outlawed by the Republican/Popular Front government, and Jose Antonio
who refused to lower his flag of resistance, was arrested on illegal
firearms charges and was sent to Alicante prison.

“Harassed on all flanks, without money, without
newspapers, besieged, misrepresented everywhere, we have a mission that
is difficult to a miraculous degree; but then we believe in miracles; we
are seeing a miracle happening in Spain”he
stated in 1935. With the outbreak of a military movement led by General
Francisco Franco, Jose Antonio’s Bolshevik captors decided to charge
him as being the ideological leader of the uprising, and forced him to
endure a Soviet-style show trial. The same Bolshevik “Popular Front”
government, as usual for tools of alien powers, later allowed Joseph
Stalin to loot hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Spanish gold in
exchange for cheaply made, worthless Soviet weaponry that was shipped
with little to no ammo.

Soon after his sentence, Jose Antonio, filled with pride,
stared down the firing squad, and exclaims with all the power of a
liberated, nationalist soul: “Long Live Spain!”On
November 20th, 1936, at the age of 33, Jose Antonio became a part of
the Pantheon of heroes, not only for the Spanish people, but also in the
hearts of all the nationalists of Europe! Throughout Spain, freedom
fighters still honor their leader proclaiming loudly in streets and
squares: “Jose Antonio- PRESENTE!”.
Jose Antonio considered death to be a given when in struggle. He
lived his life leading from the frontlines of the fight and did not lose
heart either behind bars or before the firing squad. The Bolsheviks may
have been able to take his life, but they could not control his free
spirit, that today touches the souls of Nationalists around the world
through his writings and memory. Jose Antonio remains an important
figure in the struggle against communism, capitalism, globalization,
ethnic destruction, and the teachers of falsehoods that defend all these
systems.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Did Hollywood bigwigs help Israel buy arms in the 1970s and '80s?

Longtime Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan
says they did, in an interview set to air Monday on the Israeli
investigative journalism program 'Uvda.'

Arnon Milchan, center, with Robert De Niro and Ilana Dayan on 'Uvda.'

Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan in 2003.

Arnon Milchan and Yair Lapid have kept up a close friendship, which includes sing-along nights at the Genki Club in Tel Aviv.

Hollywood is always on the lookout for blockbuster
stories, and this coming Monday it will get the juicy details about how a
producer working in Tinseltown since the late 1970s led a double life
as an arms dealer and Israeli intelligence operative.

Arnon
Milchan, the Israeli producer of such smash hits as "Fight Club,"
"Pretty Woman," and hundreds of other films, is opening up for the first
time ever about his involvement in clandestine deals to acquire arms
for Israel and his work to promote the country's alleged nuclear
program.

The
film tycoon sat down with Israeli investigative journalist Ilana Dayan
for the season premiere of her current affairs show "Uvda" ("Fact"), in
which he discusses his efforts to engage Hollywood colleagues in his
work for Israel's Defense Ministry. Keshet's show is scheduled to air
Monday, November 25, on Israel's Channel 2.

This
isn’t the first time Milchan's role in Israeli arms dealings and
intelligence has surfaced: Just two years ago authors Meir Doron and
Joseph Gelman published a book titled “Confidential: The Life of Secret
Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan" – which alleged that
Milchan was an operative for Israel's Bureau of Scientific Relations.
The bureau, headed by spy-masters Benjamin Blumberg and Rafi Eitan,
gathered information for secret defense-related programs, including
Israel's alleged nuclear program. The bureau was closed after Jonathan
Pollard was arrested for spying on behalf of Israel in 1986.

The
"Uvda" report does, however, contain some shocking new details about
Milchan's work, including claims that other Hollywood bigwigs like the
legendary, late director Sydney Pollack and at least one other Academy
Award-winning actor, both figured into his work for Israel.
The
report reveals that Pollack, who died in 2008, acquired arms and other
military equipment for Israel in the 1970s. When asked if Pollack knew
about the details of the deals, Milchan tells Dayan, "Pollack knew, but I
didn't want to scare him because he's American… He could have said
'no.' He said 'no' many times, but he also said 'yes' many times."

Milchan
also tells Dayan that he used at least one big-name actor's star
quality to lure U.S. scientist Arthur Biehl – an expert on nuclear
weapons and a co-developer of the hydrogen bomb – to a meeting.
According to the report, Milchan invited Biehl to the actor's home under
the pretense that the actor was seeking scientific advice for a project
he was working on.
Milchan
said he thought Biehl would cooperate because, "Anyone who lives in
California is a 'star-fucker…' They hear 'star'…they come running."

The
producer also confides in Dayan that his double-life wasn't always easy
to lead, particularly when what he really wanted was to dedicate
himself to filmmaking. "In Hollywood they don’t like working with an
arms dealer, ideologically," he said. "[They don't like working] with
someone who lives off selling machine guns and killing. Instead of
someone talking to me about a script, I had to spend half an hour
explaining that I'm not an arms dealer..."
Milchan
continued, "If people knew how many times I risked my life, back and
forth, again and again, for my country. And suddenly, [I have to] defend
myself – 'I'm not an arms dealer, I don't sell guns, I don't sell
rockets ' I should have been aware of that, of what I'll go through, and
said, 'Fuck you.' You know what, I did it for my country and I'm proud
of it."

The show also features interviews with Robert De Niro, Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and other major Hollywood players.

Meanwhile,
New Regency films, Milchan's company, is working on four films slated
for release in 2013-14, including "Noah," a Darren Aronofsky-directed
take on the Biblical flood story starring Russell Crowe, Emma Watson and
Anthony Hopkins.http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.559310

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Anti-Fascist Paul Flowers investigated eight years ago

Disgraced former bank boss was investigated for sending an email with alleged
'sexual connotations' to colleagues in 2005

Paul Flowers, 63, has now been
suspended from the Labour Party and his church after film footage
apparently showed him discussing the purchase of class A drugs

A disgraced banker caught on camera apparently buying drugs was investigated
about his conduct eight years ago, it has emerged.

Paul Flowers, the former Co-op Bank chairman, Methodist minister and local
councillor, was forced to refer himself to the Standards Board for England
for sending a “joke” message that is alleged to have “sexual connotations”
to council colleagues in 2005.

Although councillors who had been sent the message raised their concerns with
the Labour-run council at the time, five years later Mr Flowers was selected
by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, for his Business and Industry Advisory
Group.

Mr Flowers, 63, has now been suspended from the Party and his church after
film footage apparently showed him discussing the purchase of class A drugs.

He is being investigated by police after being caught on camera apparently
trying to buy crystal meth, cocaine and ketamine. He has now said his
actions were “stupid” and “wrong”.

He was reported to have bought drugs days after giving evidence to the Commons
Treasury committee on how the bank lost £700 million. When Mr Flowers
appeared before the committee he was criticised for apparently lacking a
grasp of the basic facts about the bank or the issues surrounding it. He is
not expected to be recalled, but the scandal has put more pressure on
regulators to increase checks on people appointed to senior banking roles.
Following the drug investigations it has since emerged that in 2011 Mr Flowers
was forced to resign from Bradford council after adult content was found on
his computer when he handed it in for repairs. At the time he cited
“personal reasons” and increased responsibilities at the Co-operative
Banking Group for leaving the council.
Following the latest disclosures, Grant Shapps, the Conservative party
chairman, has written to Ed Miliband telling him the behaviour and actions
of Mr Flowers have “shocked and appalled the public”.
“They have also raised serious questions about the Labour Party to which you
have not yet adequately responded,” he wrote. Mr Shapps added that people
asking “honest” questions about how much the Labour party knew about Mr
Flowers’ past were met with a “wall of silence”.
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls’ office has said that he will not give back a
donation from the Co-operative Group of £50,000, made in March 2012 when Mr
Flowers was chairman of the bank and a director of the group.
Len Wardle, the Co-op Group chairman, yesterday resigned, citing “serious
questions” raised by the scandal surrounding former banking chairman.
Mr Wardle had earlier announced his decision to retire next year, but the
Co-op Group said he has now resigned “with immediate effect”.

NWN: It seems before Flowers ran off under a massive cloud in the early 1990's from Rochdale, he did exactly the same down in the South of England where he was again caught by Police indulging in 'acts of gross public indecency'. Just heard on the SMOOTH RADIO station that police have now found "illegal images" on his computer.

Monday, November 18, 2013

The Pace Egging Play

At
the sound of the Leaders Whistle , the players enter the performance
area singing a “Calling in Song” and form a rough circle. The
performance is given in as broad a Lancashire accent as possible and all
actions are performed dramatically to the extreme.

All The Players Sing

Here's one two three jolly lads all in one mind, we've come a Pace Egging and we hope you’ll prove kind. And we hope
you'll prove kind with your Eggs and strong beer and we'll come no more
nigh you until the next year, fol a dee, foll a dee, foll a diddle um
di day.

The Fool enters the performance area and introduces the play

I
open the door, I enter in I hope your favour we shall win. So stir up
the fire , strike a light and watch my merry lads act tonight whether we
stand or whether we fall we'll do our best to please you all. So room
room brave fellows all, give us room to rhyme we'll do our best to
please you all this happy Easter time and if you don't believe what I
say.........Step in St George and clear the way.

St
George enters the performance area. He is dressed in his traditional
white tabard with the Cross on his breast. He wears a Gold helmet and
carries a sword and a dead dragon. He then declares...

In
comes I this man of courage bold, with my broad axe and sword I won
this crown of gold. I fought this fiery dragon and drove it to the
slaughter and by these means won the King of Egypt's daughter. Show me
the man who bids me stand and I'll cut him down with my right hand

Enter Slasher the Turkish Knight. He wears a fez and his sword is marked with the Star and Crescent of The Prophet

In
comes I this Turkish Knight, come from foreign lands to fight. Come to
fight St George , this man of courage bold. If his blood runs hot, I’ll
soon turn it cold.

St George responds to Slasher

Stand
back Slasher and let no more be said, for if I draw my sword I’ll
surely break thy head. Thou speakest bold to such a man as me,I'll cut
thee in small pieces and bend thee at the knee.

Slasher replies

How
can thou break my head ? My head is made of iron, my body made of
steel, my hands and feet are knuckle bone no man shall make me kneel.

St George challenges Slasher

Then draw thy sword and fight, or draw thy purse and pay, for life or payment I shall have before we end this day

Slasher responds to St George's challenge

No life or payment shalt thou have for with my sword thy head I'll cleave.

St George draws his sword

Then here we'll settle who shall fall and sword to sword with thee I'll call

Slasher draws his own sword

Aye and sword to sword with thee I'll give to see who upon this ground shall live.

(
Slasher often makes a disparaging comment at this point on the age of
the carpet/cleanliness of floor etc depending on the performance area )

St George gives his final warning

Then guard thy body and mind thy head or with my sword I'll strike thee dead.

Slasher prepares to fight

One shall live and the other shall dee, this is the challenge I give thee

St
George and Slasher fight with swords to much ribald encouragement from
the crowd and players until with a flourish, St George runs Slasher
through.

The Fool re enters the performance area and exclaims in anguished tones

St George replies

He challenged me to deadly fight, and never shall St George deny it

The Fool addresses the crowd

Oh
is there a Doctor to be found , to cure this deep and deadly wound ?
Doctor Doctor where art thou ? My son is wounded to the knee,Doctor
Doctor play thy part my son is wounded to the heart, I'll put down a
thousand pounds if e’er a Doctor can be found

Enter The Doctor

Aye
there is a Doctor to be found , to cure this deep and deadly wound. I'm
a Doctor , pure and good, and with my right hand I'll staunch his
blood.

The Fool addresses The Doctor

But where hast thou been and from where dost thou come ?

The Doctor replies to The Fool

Italy , Sicily , Germany, France and Spain, three times around the world and back again.

The Fool addresses The Doctor again

But what canst thou do and what canst thou cure ?

The Doctor replies airily

Oh,
All sorts of diseases, just what my physic pleases. The itch, the
stitch, the pox and gout, rheumatics in and pains without. Now !

(He
pulls a bottle from his pocket or bag and shows it to the crowd with a
dramatic flourish. The Bottle is usually Guinness or some other famous
brand)

I
have a bottle by my side, its fame has travelled far and wide. The
stuff in here is elicampane, bring anyone back to life again, a drop on
his head and a drop on his heart, stand up bold fellow and take thy
part.

The Doctor administers the medicine, Slasher is brought back to life and the players cheer

Enter Big Head, he may use the team shield to dance on if the floor of the performance area is carpeted or polished

In
comes I, I haven’t been in yet, with my big head and my little wit.
With my head so big and my wit so small, I'll dance a jig to please you
all.

Big Head dances for the audience and
leaves . Enter Beelzebub wearing a hat with horns, he carries a club and
a chip pan, he is wearing chains

In comes I Beelzebub, over my shoulder I carries a club. In my hand a dripping pan, don't you think I'm a jolly old man ?

The Players great this with various ribald comments

Enter Johnny Jack, he wears three dolls strapped to his back

In
comes I little Johnny Jack, I've two or three young 'uns on my back.
Its your money we want and your goodness we crave so we'll sing you a
song and we'll take our leave.

The
Players form a circle with Beelzebub in the middle. As they circle him
the players touch his club with their own stick to gain luck.

The Players sing

Old
toss pot old toss pot old toss pot you see, with a bunch of blue
ribbons tied around to his knee. He's a worthy old man and he wears a
pig tail and his only delight is in drinking old ale, fol a dee fol a da
fol a diddle aye dum day

The Players reverse direction and sing

Jack
the sailor killed his wife, cut her up with a carving knife, weep away,
weep away, play the fiddle we're all so gay we're all so gay, play the
fiddle we're all so gay.

The Players reverse direction again and whilst continuing to sing leave the circle and form a line ready to take their bows

Down
in Bent's meadow there's plenty of bugs, they jump in your pocket and
out of your lugs. We'll take a sharp knife and cut their heads off, then
we'll have a good supper of bugs head and broth, fol a dee fol a di fol
a diddle um di day.

The Flayers take their individual bows

First their does step in ,is our noble fool and lads if you believe me he's never been to school.

Right fol ru a laddie right fol ru a laddie

Next their does step in ,is our noble George and lads if you believe me he wears his mothers drawers. Right fol ru.........etc.

Next their does step in, is our noble Slasher and lads if you believe me he makes a good egg smasher. Right fol ru …..etc.

Next their does step in, is our Doctor Quack and lads if you believe me he cured poor Slasher's back.

Right fol ru.....etc.

Next their does step in, is our Beelzebub and lads if you believe me he’s ne'er seen t'washing tub.

Right fol ru.....etc.

Next their does step in, is our Big head gay and lads if you believe me we're all going away.

Right fol ru.....etc.

Next their does step in is our Johnny Jack, and lads if you believe me next year we're coming back.

Right fol ru....etc.

The Fool closes the performance

Ladies
and Gentlemen ! Our play is ended and our money box is recommended,
five or six shillings wont do us any harm, gold or silver if you can. So
thank you very much and a Happy Easter to you all.

THE END

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Israel’s President Shimon Peres Admits that Israel Ordered the Assassination of Yasser Arafat

Nine years after Yasser Arafat died in a French military hospital
on November 11, 2004, a Swiss team of toxicologists has found traces of
the radioactive isotope polonium-210 in his exhumed remains, as well as
in his shroud and the soil of his shrine.

A Russian team also found traces of polonium in the body of the
leader of Fatah and elected president of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Swiss scientists said there was an 83 percent probability that the
late Palestinian leader was poisoned. proving, and expanding the web
site.
Their findings, part of the French authorities’ broader investigation
into Arafat’s death, confirm that the Palestinian leader was
assassinated.

As soon as Arafat, who was in good health, became ill after eating a
meal at his compound in Ramallah in October of 2004, there were
suspicions that he had been poisoned. But it proved impossible to
determine whether that was the case. None of the doctors treating him,
in Palestine or in France, were able to diagnose the cause of his
illness, which was a combination of intestinal inflammation, jaundice
and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation.

It was only after investigative journalist Clayton Swisher, a former
US Secret Service bodyguard who became friendly with Arafat and pressed
his suspicions about Arafat’s death, that the Qatar-based news channel
Al Jazeera launched an investigation. Qatar is now home to and sponsor
of Khaled Meshaal and the exiled leadership of Hamas, the offshoot of
the Muslim Brotherhood that rules in Gaza and is opposed to the PA.

Al Jazeera’s investigation found traces of polonium in Arafat’s
personal effects, leading to the opening of a homicide inquiry in France
and the exhumation of his body. Such were the tensions between Mrs.
Arafat and the PA that she sent samples to Switzerland while the PA sent
samples to Russia.
Responsibility for Arafat’s death was immediately and with
justification attributed to Israel, which assassinated numerous
Palestinian leaders, including Arafat’s closest collaborator, Abu Jihad.
Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly admitted to having tried
unsuccessfully to kill Arafat. The PA leader’s assassination became
official Israeli state policy.

In September 2003, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly
declared that the Israeli government intended to assassinate the
Palestinian president, claiming the cabinet’s decision to get rid of
Arafat was “a decision to remove Arafat as an obstacle to peace.”
From virtually the beginning of the Second Intifada in September
2000, Arafat had been kept a virtual prisoner in his bombed-out offices
in Ramallah, unable to exert more than minimal control over Palestinian
life. The Bush administration backed Israel to the hilt, vetoing a
United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s decision
to get rid of Arafat.

Israel never repudiated the decision. Just weeks before Arafat’s final illness, Sharon reiterated the threat to kill him.
Since the 1990s, Arafat had repeatedly sought to arrive at an
accommodation with Israel and the United States, and had accepted the
creation of the Palestinian National Authority under the Oslo Accords in
1993. In return, he had been charged with policing a restive and
impoverished Palestinian population trapped in a de facto prison while
their leaders grew fabulously wealthy.
Arafat had nevertheless retained enough of a connection to his
revolutionary nationalist past to balk at using the PA to suppress the
militant opposition to Israel from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic
Jihad and Hamas, which would have entailed launching a civil war against
his own people.
His death removed that obstacle and cleared the way for the installation of a more pliant leadership under Mahmoud Abbas.

After years of denials from Israeli spokespersons, Israeli President
Shimon Peres has admitted the truth. In an interview given to the New York Times
some months ago, which was published only last week, Peres said Arafat
should not have been assassinated and asserted that he had opposed the
policy of murdering him. Peres stated he had “protected Arafat from
several plots against his life.”
Arafat’s murder testifies to the wholly criminal character of the
conduct of Washington and its key allies. It came after the launching of
wars of aggression and colonial domination against Afghanistan and
Iraq, using the 9/11 attacks as the pretext and employing lies about
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Since Arafat’s murder, drone
assassination, euphemistically referred to as “targeted killing,” has
become official state policy of the US as well as Israel.

Responsibility for Arafat’s assassination, however, does not end with
Washington and Tel Aviv. The manner of his death points to the
complicity of elements within the Palestinian leadership, since someone
within Arafat’s entourage in Ramallah must have administered the poison.
It has taken nine years to identify the cause of death only because
the new Palestinian leadership under Abbas did everything it could to
block the truth from coming out. The PA did nothing to examine the
circumstances of Arafat’s death. It refused an autopsy. It wrote to the
French authorities asking for further medical information only in 2009,
and never asked Mrs. Arafat for materials that might yield forensic
clues.
The PA was reluctant to exhume the body and sought a United Nations
investigation, along the lines of the tribunal into Lebanese leader
Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, which targeted Syria, or one by the Arab
League.
The assassination of Arafat expresses in full the dead-end of the
nationalist perspective that blocks the working class from adopting an
alternative to exploitation by their ruling class and by imperialism. It
confronts Palestinian workers with the knowledge that the man most
closely associated with the struggle for statehood was killed with the
collusion of the clique of billionaires that emerged as the leadership
of the organisation he created.
In that regard, Palestine is essentially no different from the rest
of the Middle East, where venal nationalist leaders serve the interests
of the oil companies and banks at the expense of their own working
class.
Arafat’s assassination confronts Israeli workers with the fact that
the Middle East’s much-vaunted “sole democracy” is run by military
gangsters who function as the guardian of Washington’s interests in the
oil-rich Middle East, as well as jailers of the Palestinians and
exploiters of their own working class.
Only the perspective of socialist internationalism, whereby the
working class takes control of the globally organised productive forces
created by capitalism to re-organise production on the basis of social
need instead of private profit, offers a progressive alternative to
economic privation, repression and war.
Workers in Israel/Palestine can realise socialism only by drawing the
working class of the entire Middle East, irrespective of religion, sect
or ethnicity, into a common struggle against the regional ruling elites
and their masters in the United States and Europe.http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-president-shimon-peres-admits-that-israel-ordered-the-assassination-of-yasser-arafat/5358358

Crystal meth shame of bank chief: Counting off £20 notes to buy hard
drugs, this is the man who ran the Co-op Bank... three days after
telling MPs how it lost £700m

It was just days after he was grilled by MPs over his bank's performance

Heis seen in his car discussing the cocaine and crystal meth he wants

He then counts out £300 in £20 notes and sends a friend to make the deal

The video handed over byan acquaintance 'disgusted by his hypocrisy'

Last night MPs demanded Rev Flowers appear before them again

Flowers boasts of usingketamine along with cannabis and club drug GHB

The chairman who oversaw the
near-collapse of the Co-operative Bank has been caught buying and using
illegal drugs including crystal meth, crack cocaine and ketamine.The
Rev Paul Flowers, a Methodist minister, was filmed buying the
substances just days after he was grilled by MPs on the Treasury Select
Committee over the bank's disastrous performance.In
the shocking video, Rev Flowers, 63, is seen in his car discussing the
cocaine and crystal meth he wants from a dealer in Leeds. He then counts
out £300 in £20 notes and sends a friend to make the deal.SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Caught on camera: The Rev Paul Flowers was filmed counting money for drugs

The video and a series of
damning text messages were handed to The Mail on Sunday by acquaintance
Stuart Davies, who was 'disgusted by his hypocrisy'. The
text messages prove Rev Flowers was using hard drugs in the days
surrounding his crucial testimony to the Treasury Committee on November
6. Last night MPs on the committee demanded Rev Flowers appear before
them again. Tory MP Brooks
Newmark said he was 'gobsmacked' by the revelations which are sure to
revive concerns about Britain's banking industry and who is fit to run
it.

Former Labour councillor Rev
Flowers yesterday apologised for his 'stupid and wrong' actions and
blamed the 'pressures of my role with the Co-op Bank'.Flowers
was the £132,000-a-year chairman of the 'ethical' Co-op Bank from 2010
until May this year when he stepped down as the bank's financial woes
became apparent. The bank lost £700 million in the first six months of
this year.On the day after
his appearance at the Commons, Flowers sent a text reading: 'I was
"grilled" by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday and afterwards came
to Manchester to get wasted with friends.'

Flowers, who is gay, also boasts
of using illicit substances including ketamine, a powerful Class C
tranquilliser nicknamed 'ket', along with cannabis and club drug GHB.In
one text, Flowers wrote how his plans for a party were 'turning into a
two day, drug fuelled gay orgy!!!' In another, he boasted of how he was
'snorting some good stuff'. That was sent on the day he was first
scheduled to appear before the Commons committee, but the session ran
out of time to hear him. And last week, he said in a text: 'I'm on ket
tonight.'Flowers has been a
Methodist minister for 40 years, currently in Bradford, and formerly
chaired drugs charity Lifeline, whose motto is: 'Telling the Truth About
Drugs.' In one report, Rev Flowers wrote of 'the ever-increasing
problems associated with drug use faced by individuals, families and
communities'.

Ethical? Reverend Paul Flowers has been a minister for 40 years

The Co-op Group, via its political
arm, is a major Labour Party donor and sponsors about 30 MPs, including
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Rev Flowers is a trustee of HIV charity the
Terrence Higgins Trust, whose website says that in 2010 Labour leader
Ed Miliband appointed him to the party's Finance and Industry Board.Stuart
Davies, 26, first encountered the minister via the gay dating mobile
phone app Grindr in early October. The two men exchanged texts and met a
few weeks later. Mr Davies, who admits having used drugs in the past,
said he was shocked by the scale of Flowers' drug taking as well as his
double standards as he cavorted with two other young men.'After
hearing him bragging about his life, about his connections in
Parliament, his 40 years in the church and his all-round good works, it
just felt wrong,' said Mr Davies. 'He seemed to be using his status to
get young men off their heads for sex.'Mr
Davies decided to expose Flowers and recorded part of a trip they took
with a third man, who we will call X, to Leeds to buy drugs. In time-marked footage, Flowers says after handing over the £300: 'What else have we got to get?' X replies: 'No, that's it'.Flowers: 'Ket? No?'X says he doesn't think he can get it and Flowers replies: 'Don't worry. We will cope with what we've got.'Legal
experts say the evidence in the text messages and video footage could
lay Flowers open to charges of possession and supplying drugs.Mr
Davies, who works in a bank, said drugs first came up in an chat on
Grindr after their first meeting. He said Rev Flowers asked if he had
used cocaine. 'I'd had the odd line and that's what I told him,' he
said.

Having parked up, Paul Flowers counts out £300 in £20 notes before handing the cash over for a drugs deal

The video and a series of damning text messages
were handed to The Mail on Sunday by acquaintance Stuart Davies, who was
'disgusted by his hypocrisy'

Some weeks later – on October
29, the date of Flowers' aborted appearance at the Commons – he sent Mr
Davies a message saying he was, 'snorting some good stuff' and the next
day invited Mr Davies to a party at his house. Shortly before he picked
Mr Davies up, Flowers sent a text saying: 'Have 2 bags of Charlie
[cocaine] here and have ordered another 5... enough? P x'One minute later he adds: 'Also have ket and G [GHB] because they [two other party guests 'A' and 'B'] apparently like them...!'Mr
Davies recalled that at the party: 'He produced a metal tray which had
cocaine on one side and ketamine on the other. About an hour after we
got there, another man came round with five more grams of coke.

REVEREND PAUL FLOWERS AND THE CO-OP BANK'S £1.5BN 'BLACK HOLE'

Co-op
Bank came close to collapse after running up more than £700million in
losses in the first half of this year and being forced to fill a
£1.5billion black hole in its funding. As
bank chairman and deputy chairman of the Co-operative Group, Paul
Flowers oversaw the bank's activities throughout the lead up to the
crisis.The bank's
near-failure stemmed from its ill-starred takeover of the Britannia
Building Society in 2009, its huge payouts to compensate customers
mis-sold products and its aborted takeover of 632 Lloyds Banking Group
branches.The Bank of England forced the bank to raise more cash in June after it became clear it was heading for heavy losses.In
a deal hatched earlier this month, The Co-op Group is to surrender the
majority of its shares in the bank to City firms in return for them
writing off part of its debts.Executives
have faced severe criticism for disastrous policies that led to the
crisis. But as chairman, Flowers's job was to oversee their decisions
and hold them to account.

'Paul was lining up big fat lines of the
stuff. A was also having the GHB as was Paul but both he and B were
mostly interested in the ketamine but also some of everything else
besides. When we weren't doing that we were smoking joints.'Paul was really holding court and telling us what he had been up to.'He
had been at the Commons the previous day for his aborted meeting and Mr
Davies said: 'He took great delight in telling us how he had put one
over on them – “Tory c****” he called them – because they'd wanted him
back the next day but he had told them where to go.'We
asked him about how he kept his drug taking secret and he laughed and
said that a Labour MP had passed him in the corridors and said, “Have
you got a touch of the old Colombian flu?” He laughed.'He also told us he knew Tony Blair, especially back in 1997. He just seemed to know everybody.'On
November 7, Flowers sent a text referring to his 'grilling' the
previous day. Two days later, he promised a 'fine old party' with
'Charlie, ket and rocks if [sic] crystal' but added that he had never
tried crystal.Mr Davies
said: 'By this stage I was determined to get some proof of what he was
like so I made up my mind to film him on my iPhone'. And last Saturday
he recorded the footage handed to The Mail on Sunday. He,
X and Rev Flowers went to a council house in Leeds where they paid £100
for weed. Then the minister 'counted out £260 for half an ounce of
cocaine and £40 for rocks of crystal meth'. Mr Davies said: 'When we got
it back to his house, X said it was crack and they lit it and inhaled
it from a pipe with silver foil.He
said that when they got back to Flowers' house 'there was the biggest
rock of cocaine I have ever seen in my life... it was bursting out of a
large transparent bag. Paul got a tumbler and began crushing it.'He added that the minister 'was drinking pink champagne and dropping GHB into it.'Rev.
Flowers said in a statement: 'This year has been incredibly difficult,
with a death in the family [his mother Muriel a year ago] and the
pressures of my role with the Co-operative Bank.

Flowers, who is gay, also boasts of using
illicit substances including ketamine, a powerful Class C tranquilliser
nicknamed 'ket', along with cannabis and club drug GHB

'At
the lowest point in this terrible period, I did things that were stupid
and wrong. I am sorry for this, and I am seeking professional help, and
apologise to all I have hurt or failed by my actions.' The
Co-operative Bank said last night: 'We can make no comment on these
allegations which are of a personal nature and being made against a
former board member.'The
Methodist Church said: 'We expect high standards of our ministers. We
have procedures for when ministers fail to meet those standards, and we
will now start those with a thorough investigation. We will also work
with the police if they feel a crime has been committed.'

METH, KET AND CRACK: THE DANGEROUS COCKTAIL OF PARTY DRUGS

MethaMphetamine (right)Better known as: Crystal meth or Ice.What is it? A chemical combination that can look like glass shavings or a crystal rock.How is it taken? Smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected.Effect: Increased arousal and heart rate, reduced appetite, lower inhibitions, psychosis, paranoia. Cost: £20-30 a gram.

KetamineBetter known as: Ket or K, a horse tranquiliser.What is it? A powder with a yellow tinge popular as a club drug, especially on gay scene.How is it taken? Mostly snorted but can be injected.Effect: Highly relaxing but can be hallucinogenic. Can cause paralysis.Cost: £20-£25 a gram.Crack CocaineBetter know as: Crack or rock, allegedly the most addictive form of cocaine.What is it? It comes in rocks and can be yellow or off-white.How is it taken? It is inhaled after 'freebasing' – being heated on tin foil.Effect: Intense but short-lived high leading to depression.Cost: £10 for a tiny rock.Gamma-hydroxYbutYrateBetter known as: GHB or GBL or G. Also known as date rape drug.What is it? An oily chemical liquid, odourless and colourless.How is it taken? A dropper from a small bottle put into your drink or on your tongue.Effect: Euphoria, reduced inhibitions, heightened sexual arousal. Risk of coma or death.Cost: £7-£10 for a tiny bottle.

'I was grilled by the Treasury Select Committee yesterday... and afterwards came to Manchester to get wasted'

The
Reverend Flowers' testimony to the Treasury Select Committee earlier
this month was ridiculed by many, particularly after he was asked the
size of the Co-op's assets. Flowers said '£3billion'. The correct answer was £47billion. Perhaps
it was not surprising, as our text messages reveal the Rev Flowers'
mind appeared to be elsewhere both before and after his appearance.

Ridicule: The Rev Flowers during the Treasury Select Committee hearing

The day before the hearing, on November 5, he was planning a party and texted Stuart Davies: 'Do you like ket?'And
on the day after, he texted again to say: 'I was grilled by the
Treasury Select Committee yesterday and afterwards came to Manchester to
get wasted with friends.'Flowers' stunning lack of knowledge about the Co-op Bank raised fears that it had lacked basic oversight from its chairman. But
Flowers insisted: 'I think you have seen my CV. You will know what I
believe my skills to be, and what others have judged my skills to be.' Nevertheless,
his performance prompted the committee's chairman, Andrew Tyrie, to
deliver a withering conclusion: 'Today we were provided with further
evidence, if it were needed, that the chairman of a bank must have a
good deal of financial experience and expertise.'